


Nocturne

by prosodiical



Category: Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 02:36:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9695909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosodiical/pseuds/prosodiical
Summary: Hajime wants to show Chiaki the world, and build her a life in it, too. It's just - the world isn't a particularly good place.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NightsMistress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightsMistress/gifts).



"It feels a little like a video game, doesn't it?"

Hajime glances at Chiaki who's standing by his side, looking out over the field of Monokumas pouring out of the factory. It's one of Towa's divisions, and though he only has Akane and Nekomaru by his side on this expedition, they're slowly moving forward. "How so?"

"You know," Chiaki says. "The endless spawning of mook enemies, while you fight through them to get to the main area. There's usually a boss and some button to press at the end, I think."

Hajime smiles despite himself. "And if we're doing this for fun?"

"Level grinding," she decides. "They need the practice, right?"

"And when do you stop?"

Chiaki narrows her eyes, frowning thoughtfully. "Usually when you've reached max level, or when the time isn't worth the EXP you're getting, so you should move to a different area where the time-effort ratio is better. Or when you're tired of it, or running low on health. It's good to take a save break every so often."

Hajime says, "A break to save, huh?" and she smiles at him, quiet and fond. "I guess... this is getting boring."

She's not there anymore when Hajime jumps down to the Monokumas' level, when Hajime doesn't even bother fighting them as he strides up to the doors, but he raises his eyebrows at the bulky large robot made of at least fifty smaller Monokuma heads and arms and bodies that starts to lumber towards him once inside. "Maybe this is a videogame," he says, half to himself, as it throws a bomb at him; Hajime does the calculations automatically and picks up a stray piece of metal, hitting it straight back.

It collides at the central power relay, as Hajime expected, and the robot blows into pieces, parts flying through the air. Hajime scans the room, picking out the generators, and he tosses a smaller Monokuma at each one, watching them explode on contact.

The power shuts off with a whir and a whine, and Akane and Nekomaru dash into the factory, both breathing heavily. "We did it!" Akane shouts, as Nekomaru bellows, "Good work!" and - 

Hajime exhales, closes his eyes for a moment, and she's there again. "Not quite a button," she says, "but close enough, right?"

"Yeah," Hajime says, quietly. "Close enough."

 

(Hajime spends an hour every night sketching plans and discarding them, reworking and rewiring and replanning. Muscles and tendons and ligaments over a skeleton, the wiring of each individual nerve, and synthetic skin over all of that, but - it's never quite right. 

He doesn't let her see.)

 

"Have you been to an amusement park before?"

"No," Chiaki says, "but I don't think they're supposed to be like this."

It's abandoned, as most things are now. Hajime casually destroys the few lost Monokumas that have made their way around here, but there's no organised group of them. He looks around, wondering what Chiaki makes of it; the derelict buildings and the overgrowing grass, the faded colours of fabric and paint chipping off plastic.

"No," Chiaki corrects, "I don't think they're supposed to be like this outside of horror games."

The machinery of the rides is still intact, if slightly rusted. The merry-go-round has had all the animal heads replaced by staring, grinning Monokumas. Hajime fiddles with the attached power, watching it light up bright and garish against the gloom, and Chiaki looks dubious as he gestures her onto a seat. "Come on," he says, "you wanted to see the world, right?"

Chiaki looks up at the sky. The clouds hang low, the horizon's burnt red, and not for the first time Hajime wonders if she's really happy here, wandering pointlessly through this broken world when her purpose was for something better, bigger, more. Hajime's a product of despair, but Chiaki was made for hope.

"I do," she says, simply. "I want to see it with you. But if we're attacked by creeping zombies or start having to watch our sanity bar - "

"I'll handle it," Hajime says, and while years ago it may have been an unsubstantiated boast, now - he doesn't fear monsters, now. Only people. Only himself.

"Okay," Chiaki says, and swings a leg over the nearest Monokuma-unicorn. "I'll trust you, then. Maybe."

Hajime shakes his head, smiling, and flips the switch that starts it spinning. Chiaki's eyes widen, startled, as the merry-go-round starts to move; the sound it plays is like some old-fashioned music box, and Hajime waits until she's come all the way around before he steps up, too.

Sitting sideways on a Monokuma-headed lion, Hajime looks back at the rows of vandalised animals prancing toward them, all with that fixed Monokuma grin and sparkling red eye, and frowns. "It is a little creepy."

"I'm expecting an attack at any moment," Chiaki says, sagely. "If you anticipate it, you're more ready to beat off the zombie horde when it comes."

Still, there's no attacking zombie horde when Chiaki spots the line of food stalls and coaxes Hajime over, eyes bright as he fixes a cotton candy machine. He finds a still-sealed tub of sugar behind the counter, and collects a whole stick of it, pink strands spun from the air.

He gets a headache from eating all that sugar, but it's worth it for her smile.

The haunted house has a few broken and near-dead Monokumas stuck inside, and Chiaki makes Hajime trigger the jump-scares over and over until she's satisfied, then quizzes him on the mechanics of it as they walk back into the muted sunlight. "Kazuichi's the expert," Hajime deflects, but she looks at him pointedly and he sighs. "Okay, okay, but - why do you want to know?"

She looks up at the rusting ferris wheel that dwarfs the rest of the park, its colors faded, the metal warped. "Gaming isn't a good talent for the apocalypse, you know," she says. "Everyone else has found ways to be helpful, and I... I don't know. I thought, maybe..."

"You're helping me," Hajime says, pointlessly.

"Am I?"

Chiaki looks at him, searching, and he isn't sure what she'll find.

He scales to the top of the ferris wheel when the sky starts to darken, the light deepening to a blood-red dusk. Chiaki sits there, swinging her legs into the empty air, looking out across the city. "It's so weird," she says, "how big it is. The world."

"We'll see it all," Hajime says. "Well, maybe not Antarctica."

"No Monokuma factories there, huh?" Chiaki asks, smiling slightly. "I think... I'd like that."

They sit there until the light fades, Hajime's hand on the metal struts right next to hers.

 

(It should be easy; he has all the talents he needs. But Hajime makes her taller, shorter, older, younger, and still can't shake the feeling that none of it's right.

She never asks him about it, which makes it worse.)

 

He's scouting for new base locations when he hears it: the high-pitched shout of someone in trouble.

Hajime moves before he thinks of it, his feet eating ground. The rattling noise of a chainsaw lets him pinpoint the Monokumas, five of them, cornering a small family at the back of an alley; the man is glancing up at the wall, murmuring to the woman, who clenches her hands tight on her daughter's shoulders, face set in a stubborn frown.

Hajime drops between them and the Monokumas and can feel their stares on his back. But nothing is too hard for him, not anymore; he dodges the first swipe of a chainsaw and knocks it out of the Monokuma's hand, where it clatters to the ground. Another jumps at him and he steps on its head, splitting it from its body as it hits the chainsaw's edge, and the remaining Monokumas start running. Hajime watches them dispassionately as the balcony he jumped down from creaks and then falls, crushing them underneath a pile of twisted metal. Their robot bodies spark and then fail, the light dying from their eyes.

"I think you get an MVP award for that," Chiaki says, beside him, and Hajime's mouth quirks as he turns to look at the three people still standing by the far wall.

"Thank you," the woman says, too guilelessly honest, and Hajime looks away.

"Do you know where they came from?"

"Three blocks away," the man says. "The shopping mall. We were..." He shakes his head. "I don't know why you did it, but you saved us. That deserves thanks."

Hajime frowns down the street. "It's boring," he says, "having people die senselessly for chaos and despair. They've already done it so many times, and... nothing's changed." He glances back at them, sees their quickly-hidden fear at their recognition of him. "They'll be gone by tomorrow."

"Hajime-kun," Chiaki says as he steps away, and he glances at her pointed expression and smiles, shaking his head.

"Yeah," he says, "and, you're welcome."

He heads to the mall at a languid pace. Monokumas are predictable, and he watches them mill about inside from across the street and then reaches for his phone. "Sonia," he says when she picks up. "Can you clear out a place without too much property damage?"

"Of course!" she says, sounding affronted. "I will get Tanaka-san and Komaeda-san - "

"Not Nagito," Hajime says, wincing at the thought of his brand of unpredictability on a building.

"Well," Sonia says, "Mitarai-san, then. I assume you've found another Monokuma stronghold?"

"Not quite so many," Hajime says, "but I think you'll have fun." He tells her where it is, stays on the phone for a moment longer as she starts to fade out, her voice turning a familiar shade of commanding as she talks to Ryouta at the other end. Once she's gone, he hangs up.

"You're getting better, aren't you?"

Chiaki's biting her lip, staring out at the mall across the street. Hajime studies her. He can pick up every waver of inflection in her voice, every twitch of her face, but it doesn't help him with this.

"I am," he says, "thanks to all of you."

She looks at him then, gaze sweeping across his face, and then turns her face to the sky. Her mouth curls into a slight smile. "Hey," she says, "do you see that? I think it's a fire."

There's a fire, and then there's rain. The rain dulls the smell of it as they approach, and it makes Hajime notice it too late, the survivors pulling corpses from the buildings, the blood scraped along the pavement. Chiaki steps toward the bonfire, and Hajime says, "No, don't - "

He reaches out to stop her; his hand passes through her wrist.

She looks at him. "It's okay," she says. "I know."

"I know you know," Hajime says, wretchedly, "because _I_ know, but - you shouldn't have to see this."

"Hajime-kun," she says, "I know. Sometimes... it's like you're stuck in one of those first-person shooters, where there's nothing but the goal of killing everything in your way, and maybe some people, too. And sometimes it's like a horror game, where everything's broken and dead, or a stealth game, where you have to creep along and try not to get caught, because if you do..." She glances away, to the pile of dead bodies smouldering in the rain. "And sometimes, when you're with everyone, it's a cooking game, or a community sim, or those parts in those RPGs where, despite everything, you still have your friends."

"Despite everything, huh?" Hajime says, and she gives him a quicksilver smile.

"Well," she says, "I think. And... we're friends, aren't we?"

"Of course," Hajime says.

"Then, trust that I want to help you. Maybe I won't be much good at it," she adds, "but I'm learning. I'll try."

"No," Hajime says, "you're right."

He walks up to her, and lets her see every slow-burning corpse through his eyes. And then the survivors, too; old and young, families and people alone, each of them working together with a steady determination that nearly shines.

"See?" Chiaki says, smiling, and Hajime can feel it catching, his own mouth quirking as he turns away.

"Yeah," he says. "I, ah, have something to show you, actually."

 

She studies the body with a concentration she normally only applies to her games, and then the connections to the external device. "You'll have to tell me how all of it works," she says, "I should know, I think, if it's me."

"I will," Hajime says. "Is it..."

"It even looks like me," she says, and smiles at him. "Thanks."

"It's not that much like you," Hajime says, but he places the wired cap over his head. "There's always been something wrong with it."

"Isn't it," Chiaki says thoughtfully, "just that I'm me? Without me, it's just a robot body that looks like me."

That could be it, Hajime realises. Chiaki sinks into the body, the ghost of her overlapping the shell, and he closes his eyes when he turns the transfer on. It shouldn't hurt, and it doesn't, but when the _transfer complete_ ping sounds, he still feels strange and empty inside.

The monitors on her processing are still working, and Hajime watches her CPU usage spike and drop as she integrates with the body. He doesn't expect it to be soon, but it's only twenty minutes later that he hears her voice, tentative:

"Hajime-kun?"

He walks over to her and presses his palm to hers. It's warm. "Hey, Chiaki," he says.

Chiaki opens her eyes.


End file.
